Category: Interviews

Art Graffiti in the City (AGC) is a nonprofit (AMKE) based in Athens, Greece but it aspires to be active around the globe. Its primary research field is arts and culture in contemporary urban public spaces. More specifically, AGC critically investigates, processes and assesses, in an interdisciplinary manner, how graffiti -tagging and street art- affect and interact with preserved monuments, urban landmarks, antiquities, and public art works. AGC is also a pioneer in Greece regarding the examination of how the above affect local business, residents, visitors, and tourists. AGC focuses its research on select historic city centers in Greece and abroad. For more information, visit their Facebook page.

This is an interview with the President of AGC, Barbara Kondilis, and its Chief Art Consultant, Kalliope (Popi) Koundouri.

How did you become interested in philosophy?

Barbara: Philosophy of mind, and eventually working with individuals and groups utilizing cognitive behavior therapy as a certified social worker and wellness counselor brought me back to the basics. It is my belief that we can use philosophy to transform individuals and communities for the better, in urban and suburban environments, through open dialogue but also via public art. In my younger years I could be found wandering while working in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, in my attempt to come closer to the cultures and pieces I so much admired, to attempt to understand the inspirations and aspirations. How can life be without art, music, science, and philosophy?

Kalliope:  I was a restless youth. Initially, I found philosophy, as a general term, to be a logical mechanism which penetrates the bedrock of both inner reality and the outer word to reach the core of things and humans; their essence or quintessence, in a remotely Aristotelian sense. Pursuing further studies in art, I inevitably crossed paths with aesthetics. It was a crash and a crush at the same time!

Lastly, for the past 7 years, I have been privileged to teach an Intro to Philosophy (Highschool level), and Ancient Greek Philosophy 101 to my Hellenic American University (HAU) students.  Although I find the often market-driven ill-handling and ubiquities of philosophy nowadays – as a panacea – to be a degenerating factor, and although I am also appalled by formalist and stagnant wit games between some of today’s “popular philosophers”, I remain still an amateur aficionado of the discipline.

AGC: The public space and/versus the individual/citizen debate is a privileged ground for philosophical inquiry now perhaps more than ever in the story of mankind. We are set on exploring the socio-aesthetic and ontological reverberations of that debate on the city walls and other public places, and the outcomes of this tension for society.

What’s the most important concept or idea that you teach people?

Barbara: Becoming global citizens, in the modern sense, and reflecting on what it means to be a consciously-engaged citizen resembles what Socrates and Plato taught in ancient Athens. This idea was followed by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and other ancient thinkers, and it has continued to influence our present popular or motivational speakers, as well as college and university professors, even beyond classics departments. Aligning the goals of Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities with this ideal would entail promoting the fundamentals of democracy, social justice, and public health, including personal and social responsibility in the globalized world. These values are fundamental to my core teachings. Success for students, in other words, requires opening their eyes to possibilities, and a better future.

Kalliope: That is tough one to tackle. Having “γνώθι σεαυτόν”- “gnothi seafton” as a milestone, that the individual is/should not be an island, that we are all interconnected not just between us, but principally with the world around us.

AGC: Graffiti, in its varied manifestations, is by now a serious constitutional cultural element which massively contributes to the shaping of what is perceived as the contemporary face of cities. It is often open for osmosis, but also a battlefield for controversy. In spite of its innate facets, such as locality, transience and temporaneity, graffiti can also be inscribed in both our material and immaterial heritage, in the form of a hybrid, and be incorporated in the archival memory of the city.

What do you think is the most important piece of practical advice that we can derive from your work?

Barbara: The interplay of disciplines can apply to any situation, and the environment and physical structure of communities and their walls can affect people’s inner worlds.

Kalliope: Talent and vision go hand-in-hand with hard individual and group work.

AGC:

If you want to learn about a city, look at its walls

INO, internationally acclaimed Greek street artist

Do you have a favorite quote that you use?

Barbara:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

attributed Martin Luther King Jr.

Kalliope: It is indeed a Herculean feat to choose from some many intellectual milestones! I would go for the first thing that came to mind:

Every form of knowledge when sundered from justice and the rest of virtue is seen to be plain roguery rather than wisdom.

Plato, Menexenus, 247a

AGC:

Urban street space is a space for debate […] A space where word becomes writing. A space where word becomes “primitive” and, by escaping from rules and institutions, it is inscribed on walls.

H. Lefevre

What advice would you give someone who wanted to learn more about what you do?

Barbara: Take a walk with me in the city streets to get a snapshot of what is going on for better or worse. It will allow for the senses to better take in the experience.

Kalliope: Join us on our journeys into the city’s underbelly. Then visit our Facebook.

AGC: Walking around in the city, one sees that the walls speak. Α cultural palimpsest is unfolding in an ostensibly chaotic visual narrative, and this is the subject matter of contemporary urban space, both public and private.

Suppose you were able to give a talk or workshop at the original location of Plato’s Academy, in Athens. 

Barbara: Privileged and ecstatic about sharing our ‘in- group’ knowledge with the greater population in understanding at a more intimate level the interplay of environment, individual, and transforming, or simply observing and recognizing patterns.

Kalliope: Humble, empowered, proud.

Then, most excellent friend, we must not consider at all what the many will say
of us, but what he who knows about right and wrong, the one man, and truth
herself will say,

Plato, Crito, 48a

Francis Gasparini has been a writer for more than 30 years and has worked with Karen “Duff” Duffy for most of that time. With Duff, he’s written the New York Times bestseller “Model Patient”, “Backbone,” and now “Wise Up.” He’s also had extensive experience in documentary film and television.  He has worked with documentarians including Michael Moore, RJ Cutler, Davis Guggenheim, Fernando Andrade, and Ryan White; Gasparini’s films have premiered at Sundance and SXSW.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife
Jennifer Wise, daughter Maria Lucia, and a crazy dog named Petunia.

How did you become interested in this area?

I came to it through my collaboration with my writing partner, Karen Duffy, aka Duff. Stoicism has always been a part of her life and it’s been a part of our work from the beginning, but it really flowered with our latest book, “Wise Up.” I don’t consider myselfany kind of expert in Stoicism, but I approach it in the way I make documentary films—my writing with Duff is an opportunity to learn about something that engages me and apply my craft to it.

What’s the most important concept or idea that you teach people?

I mean the dichotomy of control is the beginning middle and end of it, isn’t it? But Duff and I are now working on a new project inspired in part by Marcus Aurelius’ words “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” Broadly speaking, we’re looking to inspire people to take action and make changes. Some people make fun of this line as being tautological and I understand that criticism, but I choose to interpret it as “Stop dithering and act on what you already know!” Useful advice at any time.

What do you think is the most important piece of practical advice that we can derive from your work?

When I write with Duff, I often access an almost ecstatic sense of celebrating life and its possibilities, and I hope that comes across to readers. Yes, life is hard and has more than its share of disappointments and cruelty and sadness, but there is always also beauty and joy. I hope that we’ve been able to communicate that Stoicism is a practical way to recognize and embrace those beautiful aspects of life.

Do you have a favorite quote that you use?

Epictetus’ maxim “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” This comes up a lot with my daughter, who is 15. As a nascent adult she runs across a lot of situations that aren’t ideal and we’ve always encouraged her to take action in response rather than accept them or just complain. Without getting into detail, she just had an unpleasant experience and took it upon herself to take action. She’s understood that she can’t change what happened, nor should she wallow in emotion—but she can take action in response. I was really proud to see her exercise the control she could in a pretty tough situation and thrilled to see how confident she was in herself.

What advice would you give someone who wanted to learn more about what you do?

When it comes to writing, the most banal but truest advice is that you learn by doing, over and over and over and over. I was a creative writing major in college, which was extremely useful in that it gave me an outlet to write a lot and get a lot of bad writing out of my system. Needless to say, you don’t need to study creative writing in college to write a lot and hone your craft, but it did give me a structure. Also, the absolute pettiness and bottomless factionalism of zero-consequences college writing seminars helped me develop a thick skin about what I knew was good.

Another thing that helped was many years of writing for television, in which no one cares about your feelings or how hard you worked on something, it either works (for someone else!) or it doesn’t. I don’t think you need to suffer through all of that to be a good writer, but you do need to learn how to take criticism and distinguish what’s worth listening to. The dichotomy of control comes into play here too! Control how you respond—and maybe that response is “this cruelly phrased criticism is actually valid.”

Suppose you were able to give a talk or workshop at the original location of Plato’s Academy, in Athens. How would you feel about that?

Um, overwhelmed and unworthy? The serious answer is that I’d be excited to talk about my creative process and how Stoicism has come to inform it. I write in collaboration with Duff. There is a great deal of tapping on the keyboard, but the most important part of the work is the lively discussion of what we want to say, what the Stoics say on the subject, and what crazy anecdote perfectly illustrates what we’re trying to communicate. In Stoic
terms, we never run into “writer’s block.” We rethink, we ruminate, we shoot the breeze, we digress, and in the end, as Marcus Aurelius says, “What stands in the way becomes
the way.”

Gregory Lopez is the co-author of Live Like a Stoic and A Handbook for New Stoics. He is also founder and facilitator of the New York City Stoics Meetup, and cofounder and board member of The Stoic Fellowship. In addition, he is a Modern Stoicism board member and co-facilitates Stoic Camp New York with Massimo Pigliucci. He is also lead editor for Examine.com and editor in chief of the Examine Research Digest.

How did you become interested in this area?

I first got into philosophy the same way a lot of American moody ex-religious high schoolers do: through Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, and Russell’s Why I am not a Christian. While that’s pretty stereotypical, trying to think more deeply about religion led to my interest in learning more about logic and epistemology: it’s one thing to roll one’s eyes at things like Anselm’s ontological argument, but it’s another to figure out where it may be going awry and –importantly — why. 

My philosophical interests were further bolstered when taking a year-long introduction to humanities course on ancient Greek and Roman culture in college and continued through a few optional courses on metaphysics and the philosophy of science along with some Chinese philosophy during a Chinese humanities class. 

However, much of this was theoretical at the end of the day. My interests in practical philosophy formed from two confluent sources. 

The first was discussing Buddhist philosophy with a friend. I didn’t have much initial interest in Buddhism because of my initial impression that it required too much metaphysical baggage to be of use to those who didn’t buy into it. But discussion, reading, and taking a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course convinced me that it was indeed practical.

The second source of my interest in the more practical aspects of philosophy came from looking for some rewarding volunteer work. I came across SMART Recovery, which helps people apply techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to addictive behaviors, whether they involve a substance or not. SMART Recovery leans heavily on one of the original forms of CBT created by Albert Ellis: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). I learned that REBT was heavily inspired by Stoicism. I read some Seneca back in college alongside Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and several works of Plato, but I realized that I didn’t know a whole lot about Stoicism, so I decided to look for resources.

During that search, I stumbled upon some people on the internet who were attempting to practice Stoicism in today’s world. However, there wasn’t much going on in the way of in-person learning and practice. My desire to learn more about Stoicism and how it can be practiced combined with the lack of in-person groups led me to found the New York City Stoics in 2013, and ultimately to co-found The Stoic Fellowship to help foster Stoic groups worldwide as well as to co-author a book on Stoic practice.

What’s the most important concept or idea that you teach people?

You are not everything that goes on in your head. 

From a Stoic perspective, there is only one small part of your mind that you completely control, which Epictetus calls prohairesis. Actually, it’s not quite accurate to even say that “you” control this part of your mind: instead, this part of the mind is you. Everything else is not you. 

When making this point, Epictetus often points to physical examples of what’s not you, like your hair or body, or sometimes external things like reputation or things you own. However, Stoic doctrine clearly implies that other aspects of your mind are also not necessarily you, including impressions (phantasiai; which I describe as your first feelings and thoughts about a matter that come up automatically) and proto-passions (propatheiai; the first stirrings of unhealthy emotions). These things go on in your head, but are not under your control. Instead, Stoic practice primarily — if not exclusively — consists in recognizing, analyzing, and questioning impressions and proto-passions that come up and then countering them using conscious and intentional, conscious thought and action that is consistent with believing that virtue is the only good. So the automatic stuff that pops up in your head doesn’t define you because it’s not you: instead, it’s grist for the mill of Stoic practice. 

And practice does not necessarily make perfect! Only the perfect Stoic practitioner (the sage) succeeds in working with their impressions and proto-passions every time, so Stoic practitioners will occasionally (or in my case: frequently!) screw this up. But Stoics realize that being a perfect practitioner is extremely difficult, if not impossible. So from a practical perspective, progress — not perfection — is a better goal to aim for. Even Epictetus aimed for the goal of progress. This is probably why he told people that he would be happy if he died during the third stage of Stoic practice (what Pierre Hadot called The Discipline of Assent); he didn’t say he wanted to die a sage!

What do you think is the most important piece of practical advice that we can derive from your work?

Once you find a philosophical practice that makes sense and works for you, drill it for the rest of your life, unless you discover a major flaw along the way.

This addresses two of the major failure modes for people I see coming to practical philosophy:

1. Enjoying discussing philosophy, but not putting it to use
2. Flitting from practice to practice, but not consistently sticking with anything

The only way I know of to get better at something is to do the thing repeatedly and consciously, while paying attention to feedback along the way. And if you don’t put a philosophy to use, you aren’t doing anything — you’re discussing it. This likely won’t lead to improvement. Don’t get me wrong: I do find discussion, reading, and lectures valuable, but they’re only valuable up to a point: they help me learn new things, clarify mistaken notions I hold, and serve as reminders for principles I’ve forgotten to apply. But those novel concepts, mistaken notions, and forgotten principles are sterile if I don’t then go out and try to use them to improve myself.

I don’t really find myself falling into the second failure mode anymore, but it’s something I see pop up in people who are looking for life philosophies. I highly recommend exploring different ideas and practices before settling down on something that makes sense and works for you: I did it myself. But once I found a mix of Buddhism and Stoicism that worked for me, I’ve stuck with it. Of course, I vary how I practice and what I’m focusing on based on what problems are currently arising in my life. However, my practice no longer deviates from the core principles and practices of those philosophies — unless I slip in practice altogether, which definitely does happen! But when I do fall off that horse, I try to jump back on, instead of going back to the stables and browsing for new, prettier horses.

But that doesn’t mean people should necessarily stick with the same thing forever if they find something seriously wrong with it. Sometimes, after spending time consistently practicing, you may see that some aspect of the philosophy doesn’t work for you or may even be harmful. In that case, by all means jump off that horse! Just do so for better reasons than novelty-seeking.

Do you have a favorite quote that you use?

I don’t have a favorite quote, but I do have a favorite story I tell a lot that I slightly embellish for rhetorical effect. It’s from Epictetus’s Discourses 2.22, where Epictetus is challenging a student who is questioning a Stoic paradox about whether anyone, but the Stoic sage can be a true friend. 

There, Epictetus compares the friendship of non-sages to the friendship of puppies: while everything’s going well, a pen full of puppies will happily play together and get along just fine. But what happens when those puppies aren’t fed for a couple of days, and then you throw a scrap of meat into the pen? These previously friendly puppies will immediately turn against each other, biting and snarling in order to get the scrap all to themselves.

That’s not true friendship. To be a true friend means sticking with others through thick and thin. And only the Stoic sage could remain truly constant in their friendship. That’s why the Stoic sage is the only true friend: they would never turn on anyone, no matter what’s going on. 

This is my favorite story because I think it provides a clean and compelling reason for practicing Stoicism: all of us non-sages have our scrap of meat that will make us turn against those we claim to care about and love. 

Most people seem to come to Stoicism because they want to feel better. And the surface-level, life-hack form of Stoicism is often packaged and sold with the promise to become “bulletproof” and “invincible”. Even the ancient Stoics sometimes portrayed Stoicism in this way to some degree. But that’s not the best reason to practice Stoicism in my opinion. Instead, if Stoicism fulfills its promise, it will help you become more of a true friend and to truly love. I think that’s a lot more compelling, and a lot more beautiful.

What advice would you give someone who wanted to learn more about what you do?

I have a bare-bones personal website where you can get in touch and learn more about me.

I’m also slowly building a couple of online courses for practicing Stoics who already know basic Stoic theory. You can sign up for updates here.

If you’re interested in finding or starting a local Stoic community, check out the non-profit I co-founded, Stoic Fellowship.

If you want to learn about Stoic practice, check out the book a Handbook for New Stoics, which I co-authored.

If you want to come to my meetups — some of which are held online.

You could also follow me on Twitter @GLopezPharmD. However, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it since I currently barely tweet and when I do, it isn’t always related to philosophy.

Suppose you were able to give a talk or workshop at the original location of Plato’s Academy, in Athens.

Both excited and unworthy. But those are both impressions for my prohairesis to work with.